


50 Ways to Say Mundane

by SynapticFirefly



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Family Drama, Fluff and Crack, Humor, M/M, Parody, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SynapticFirefly/pseuds/SynapticFirefly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seto Kaiba's life is far from interesting outside of a children's card game. It's just work, an emo teenage brother, and a husband who he may adore or may just want to kill. And with fangirl death threats, Zexal ringtones, pervy businessmen, and bentou stealers, he's going to need a lot of aspirin. Here, have 50 shots of them. (abridged!Kaiba/Joey)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. 4AM Joey, Really?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invoking Godwin's Law one heil at a time.

**A/N:**  What would happen if the abridged version of Kaiba and Joey were married? Good question.

**Rated:**  M for language, adult humor, future sexual content (possibly?), and all around abridgy-ness.

**Disclaimer** : I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! but I  _do_  own LittleKuriboh. (That's right, LK. Your ass is MINE.) don'tsueme

* * *

**1.**   _ **4AM Joey, really?**_

Kaiba was going over the last spreadsheets when his cell phone rang. He ignored it. His home office was completely quiet except for the sounds of clicks and clacks from his laptop. After a few more minutes, his cell phone rang again.

He ignored that too.

It wasn't Mokuba, so it didn't matter. And even if it was Mokuba, Kaiba was in no mood to speak with him. After he turned the mansion into J-MTV's version of Cribs to satisfy his hormonal urge to impress his thirteenth girlfriend, Kaiba had cut off all of his younger brother's funds and told him to get a real job. That kind of pissed him off.

_"He's just a teenager, baby."_  Joey always took Mokuba's side. Always. _"Remember when you were... oh, that's right. You weren't_ _ **normal**_ _like the rest of us. I forgot I married the equivalent of a talking vibrator that makes money."_

Moron.

He needed a break. Kaiba sat back in his expensive recliner, blinking away the bright light of the computer screen to look at the bland ceiling. He began to idly turn the golden band around his ring finger almost absently, hearing Joey issue out of his throat an annoying wheeze he called a laugh in the memory.

His cell phone rang again. He continued to ignore it.

Why, one must wonder, what had brought him to this point. Why, if he hated Joey Wheeler so much, did he marry the son of a bitch in the first place?

* * *

Two years ago, Kaiba had just... stumbled across Joey one day. They hadn't seen each other in a while and, after Duel Monsters became less popular and all of Kaiba's exploits in the subject was more ridiculed than admired, he had struggled. He wanted to play the children's card game oh so much again. And he wanted his name chanted from all four corners of the world that he was the best at it.

He found Joey on the curb, homeless and brandishing a guitar for change like a douchebag. He wanted to be famous and he wanted to be an international pop sensation. It was completely stupid, but this was something Kaiba could never pass for the world. Joey bitch-ass poor? This was going to be hilarious. Despite how pathetic Joey claimed him to be, at least he  _had_  money and he could flaunt it like the badass he was.

"Hey Kaiba," Joey had said in that annoying Brooklyn accent, shifting his ass on a raggedy Egyptian rug that he actually stole from the crazy cat lady three blocks down. And he wasn't making this shit up. "Wanna help me become a star?" He nudged a dirtied upturned hat filled with yen. It was almost full so Kaiba had to surmise that Joey was honestly really good with the guitar or his douchebag look was good with virginal Japanese schoolgirls and the occasional cougar. He decided on the latter.

"Ha, I knew you were going to end up like this! A third-rate duelist like yourself deserves nothing more than panhandling old ladies on street corners!" Kaiba folded his arms and laughed to the sky, scaring a bunch of schoolchildren in the process.

Joey tossed his donated sandwich right in the kisser. "Hey! Do you mind?! You're scaring off potential customers, ya dumbass!" He spluttered when Kaiba tossed the sandwich into the trash. "HEY! That was a week's worth of food!"

"Who's fault is that?" Kaiba snarled, wiping a bit of mayo from his cheek. "Get a real job, you hobo!" See, if Joey was just a decent duelist, he wouldn't be a damn ragamuffin. Simple logic. "You see, I have a job. I make millions! Why do you think so?"

Joey folded his arms over his guitar in an extreme moment of clarity. "Because monopolizing on entertainment and riding popularity instead of instigating it benefits your stock options?" Kaiba gaped at him, but Joey just shrugged his shoulders. "Whaaat?"

"Okay, no... and I'm just going to ignore what you just said because I can't wrap my mind around it. It's because I'm the best duelist there ever was!" That caused Joey to snort.

"Ya moron, I'm not poor because of my dueling skills! It's because I didn't pay attention in school. Well, half of that is... the other half is Japanese society's rule against students having part-time jobs. I could've had some mucho dough saved up, but naaaah..." Joey blinked and stared at his guitar for a moment. "This IS Japan, right?"

Did Kaiba suddenly just fall into another dimension? "...yeeeessss?"

"Then how come I have a Brooklyn accent?!" He jumped off the rug and grabbed Kaiba by the front of his trench coat, suddenly horrified. "Why?!"

Kaiba's eyes narrowed at the intrusion. "Because 4kids."

"Oh." Upon closer inspection, Joey poked the side of his own chin. "You got a little some... whatever." He waved it off. "Hey! Ya wanna play a children's card game for old time's sake?"

That was when time stopped for him. Kaiba hadn't dueled in so long... because people said it was old and boring and Angry Birds was the next best thing but Kaiba never gave up that one day, ONE DAY, he would be able to duel again without being laughed out of a hobby store.

And yet Joey was offering without a mock or insult. He still had his deck, he said, inside of his guitar. He still played it despite the jeers and taunts his fellow hobo friends gave him for it. Suddenly, Kaiba was seeing Joey in a whole new light. That messed up blond hair, those gorgeous brown eyes, those rough hands... not as gorgeous as his own hands, but he was going to use them in so many delicious ways. Like drawing a card, setting down a card, pointing to instigate an attack...

Kaiba grabbed Joey by the shoulders hard and began to shake. "Wanna go out?"

Joey blinked. "Wha-wha-wha-nyeeeeeeeh?!"

"You. Me. Go out. I'll give you everything you want." Just so long as Joey was willing to play a children's card game with him.

"... I can have a clean rug to sit on?"

"I'll buy the whole FUCKING block for you!"

Joey's eyes began to waver in unshed tears. "That is the most romantic thing I have ever heard!" His lips tilted up into a perverted grin. "Let's duel then. Winner gets laid!"

That left Kaiba slightly confused. "Wouldn't that just mean both players get laid regardless?"

"Then I guess we'll both win," Joey purred, swiped the rest of the mayo off of Kaiba's cheek with a finger and lewdly popped it into his mouth. Kaiba just stared, pupils blowing up in a strange lust he had only thought could happen around an Egyptian God Card.

"I love you."

"NYEH?!"

"Marry me."

Best and worst decision he had ever made.

* * *

Now his cell phone was practically doing somersaults on his desk. This time it was a text. He knew it was because Joey put Zexal's theme song into it and then password locked it just to piss him off. Fucking Zexal...

He was pretty sure it was from Mokuba. And, like Mokuba, the cell phone needed to shut up. He was a businessman who actually did WORK. But the reminders kept coming and the song just kept getting shittier with each ring.

_Take off, it's time to fly!_

_Take a chance to make it all the way!_

Kaiba growled and stuffed it into a drawer. Now he could barely hear that auto-tuned piece of shit. Thank money. First thing's first. He was going to kill Joey and then divorce him. In THAT order. There had to be some other duelist out there that still dueled. Maybe they wouldn't have as great an ass as Joey's, but he could manage.

That was the only reason why he married that no-good annoying asshat. Well, that and Joey was the only one who would screw him and not laugh at his ineptitude at it. He had been a virgin because he had better things to do... like playing card games and running a company. Maybe getting laid did lighten up his mood a bit. Maybe. It had to otherwise he wouldn't be putting up with this shit. Like making his phone ring that shitty Zexal song that 4kids shat out at the last minute. They just... _didn't care_.

That was when one of his little Hitler Youths slammed open his office door and barged right on in. "HEIL KAIBA!" Probably Han's nephew needing the extra cash for his pot smoking hobby. Probably. Kaiba didn't care.

"What the hell are you doing barging into my home office?!" Because really! Who did that?!

Han's possible nephew/son/Kaiba-doesn't-give-a-flying-fuck pointed at the still ringing phone locked in his desk. "Fuhrer Kaiba's Eva Braun is calling!"

His what? Kaiba looked directly at the desk and, with a long suffering sigh, pulled out the cell phone.

_Take a chance and chase my doubts away!_

_Believing gets me through the darkest days!_

Unlocking his phone, he found nearly twenty missed calls from Joey, ten of them texts, all of them ranging from  _'I'm at the airport'_  to _'Please pick me up there's a strange man in a trench coat following me'_  to _'I fucking hate you you fucking fucker fuck! Answer the phone or you'll never see me again I swear to fucking'_.

Huh. Kaiba looked at the clock and then at the uncovered window to prove he wasn't seeing things. It was four AM and he could see the sky already purple. "So," He asked conversationally. "How long do you think he's been at the airport?"

Han's familial thing faltered from his salute. "...three... four hours, mein Kaiba?"

He smiled. "Perfect."

And somewhere in the night, a child's beloved puppy passed away in its sleep.

* * *

Strange how there was no paparazzi around following Joey. Maybe Joey wasn't as much of a hotshot popstar as he thought he was. You see, Joey did follow his dreams. Before they got married, Joey bet on his deck that he could take ten thousand of his American dollars, go to America and use that to become a famous J-Pop artist... AND pay back the money tenfold.

Despite the flaws to that logic (you can't be a **Japanese** -Pop artist in America, you dumb shit), Kaiba gave him the money and called it a dowry that Joey's parents couldn't spend. Parents were useless anyway. That's why he got rid of his. And he didn't give him the money because he loved him, hell no... he did it for his deck.

And boy was it a shitty ass deck. It was only after he rifled through it and found next-to-nothing worth of cards did he realize he had made a terrible, terrible investment.

But, he had to give Joey credit, he DID get popular in America. He put up one viral video of him on Youtube singing nothing but that annoying verbal tick of his to a Lady Gaga song and he skyrocketed to stardom faster than a preteen girl willingly dropping her jaw for Justin Bieber's schlong.

Wow, that was in bad taste. He was actually married to the Japanese version of Justin Bieber. Wonderful.

Joey had been on tour in America for six months. Six blissful months. Well, almost blissful. That was six months without sex, but he spent most of his life without it so whatever. He can survive, but he did sorely miss it. And he  _was_  supposed to wait another six months before Joey returned to Japan, so why he arrived was still a mystery to him.

There he was camping out near the rotating baggage claim like an extremely well dressed homeless person.

When Kaiba approached, he found Joey practically sleeping on the floor, one leg haphazardly over the railing as it ran on top of the conveyor belt like an odd vibration relaxer. Only Joey Wheel-Kaiba,  _Joey Kaiba_ , (that STILL sounded weird), would sleep so awkwardly.

Nodding at Han's spawn something to get the car ready, Kaiba knelt down by the luggage and simply watched as Joey drooled on top of his phone, his wedding ring glinting at him in such a mocking fashion. He actually  _married_  this guy. Fucking surreal. Who'd have thunk it?

And yet... there was something charming about it. At least he wasn't alone. Joey had been his first and, for all the insults he would give the moron, Joey had been the best relationship he had so far. Well, the only relationship but who was counting? He wasn't.

He nudged at Joey's tummy with the tip of his shoe. "Well, well. You can take the hobo out of the street corner, but you can't take the street corner out of the hobo." That caused Joey to stir and rub his eyes.

"Nyeehhh... don't talk to me, Kaib-Set-oh fuck it, I'm calling you Kaiba because I'm pissed." He grumbled. "How could you not pick up my texts?! Did ya know I was being followed by a creepy guy in a trench coat?"

Kaiba snorted. "You may have mentioned that once. Twice."

"Well he followed me into the bathroom and violated me." That caused Kaiba to pause, eyes widening but Joey continued. "He showed me some bootleg holos. Totally violated my sense of decency for the game. I mean, who does that?!"

Fucking moron. "Why didn't you call a cab?" Now it was Joey's turn to pause and gape like a fish. "I thought so." Kaiba closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to remind himself that he didn't marry him for his brains, he did it for that piece of ass. That was a mantra that kept him sane so far.

"It... well, I wanted to see you!" Lame save.

"I find that hard to believe." Kaiba glanced at all the luggage that was currently being used as a rudimentary fort. Probably to keep away scary guys selling bootlegged holos in their trench coats. "What the fuck is all of this, Wheeler?"

Joey half-glanced at the bags before going back to his phone. Angry Birds. Kaiba's left eye began to twitch. "My luggage, duh."

"Did you bring half of Texas with you?" Because he was pretty sure Joey didn't leave six months ago with over _twenty_  carry-ons. "If you're running some kind of drug cartel, we're in need of some marriage counseling."

That finally got Joey to look up from his phone. "Oh no. Half of these are gifts from Ricardo. It's a thank you for lending me to him and skirting me away to his tropical paradise of anal sex and undercover spy work."

"Ah." Kaiba drawled. "Well isn't that nice of him? Now tell me what are they really for." He expected typical stuff a popstar would bring: expensive clothes, jewelry, instruments, third-world babies... Joey's answer surprised him.

"They're gifts."

"Gifts." Kaiba's eyebrow climbed up in disbelief. All of these were gifts? "For who?"

Joey looked at him like he just grew a second head. A real deformed one. "For Yug and the gang, duh. And for my blind sister whats-her-face..."

"Serenity." Kaiba said slowly because really, he was talking to someone with an IQ of a grapefruit. "She's not blind anymore, remember?" And really, he didn't understand why Joey would call those dweebs friends. Yugi was a schizo, Tea was batshit crazy about friendship, Tristan seemed to be working on less than half a brain, and the less he thought about the other slut the better. What was her name again? Duke Devlin. Their 'devotion' to him seemed to depend on whether they took their daily Ritalin or not.

"Right, riiight. The life of a J-Pop star is hard. Can't remember more than lyrics half the time," Joey mumbled and returned to his phone. "And there's stuff for Mokuba... and for you."

Kaiba blinked. "For me?"

Joey snorted loudly and pocketed his phone. Damn pigs and their jeers. One day he'll destroy them with his mighty bird army. "Well yeah. You're my husband, aren't ya?" It was astonishingly earnest enough to stump Kaiba right on the spot. "I've missed ya, hot stuff! Even with all the fangoils and their enormous breasts pushing up on me, it's your pasty white ass that for some reason keeps me from cheatin'."

"Gee. Thanks."

Han's something-something dark side came back and saluted them. "HEIL KAIBA! HEIL EVA!"

For some miraculous reason, Joey recognized one of the Hitler Youths. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey Schmidt! Ya mind taking all this to the car?"

"I WILL SACRIFICE MEIN LIFE AND MEIN ARMS FOR MEIN EVA!"

"Good man!" He nudged Kaiba with his elbow. "You know how hard it is to find good help in America? Rudest people ever!"

Kaiba snorted. "You tell me seeing as your accent came from there."

"What accent?"

Schmidt dutifully moved past them carrying... all of the luggage. Both Kaiba and Joey looked back at the now empty floor and then back at their servant. "That must be killer on the back." Joey winced as the little Hitler Youth's entire body began to tremble under the weight all the way to the car.

"Who cares? One of those better have my hundred grand in it." Kaiba's grumbling and Joey's attempts to feign obliviousness about that brought them to the car. The sun was already peaking out in the horizon.

Joey inhaled the pure Japanese smog, coughed, and then sighed. "Good ol' Japan and its overcrowdedness! It's good to be home!" Kaiba watched him, slightly mesmerized by how... coincidental his husband looked against the backdrop of the sunrise. Blond hair clashing with the light purple... yeah that was it. He was a businessman, not a poet. You want unnecessary prose, go read some Twilight fanfiction. Or, for maximum prose-ness, read the actual book.

Still, somewhere in Kaiba's ice cold heart, he could admit just a smidge that he missed him. The dueling he missed, he meant. Because Yugi's fucked off to somewhere and was now the King of Angry Birds. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Almost absently, he leaned forward and he must have looked good too against the sunrise because Joey looked at him eagerly and decided to close the rest of the space. For the first time in six months they kissed.

It was chaste because Kaiba was still inexperienced about this shit. Joey was always the most eager one and it was this vitality that benefited their physical relationship so far. "Tadaima..." Joey murmured against his lips, his voice revealing how tired he really was.

Gratuitous Japanese? Joey must really be caught up in the moment. Kaiba caught his lips again and yeah, he had to admit, this he liked. Very much. "Okaeri." That seemed to get Joey smiling.

"SAYA CHEESUU!" A brilliant flash of light and the moment was now permanently gone. Kaiba pushed Joey away from him out of reflex of a PR nightmare, but it wasn't fast enough for the man intruding on them. He was holding a giant camera with a big ass flasher on top.

Joey looked up from his crash on the concrete. "NYEH?! You're that pervert who was trying to sell me fake holos!"

"You sacrilegious piece of shit!" Seto snarled. No one makes a mockery out of Duel Monsters and gets away with it! He snapped his fingers. "Get him, Han's... Christian Anderson's..."

"Schmidt." Joey said unhelpfully.

Needless to say, the man did manage to get a picture of them for the J-Daily Enquirer. By the end of the morning, Kaiba woke up from a short nap to find the magazine sitting on the table. He stared over his cup of coffee to find both haggard looking former duelists locked in a very awkward and very unflattering shot of them in mid-kiss, eyes widened from the flash.  _'Kaiba Corp CEO Seto Kaiba Engaged in Homosexual Relations with J-Pop Star Joey Wheeler!'_

Fuck.

Joey yawned louder than necessary in the background before walking over to plop his chin on Kaiba's shoulder. He grimaced at the cover page. "Better than the last one. You had your hands down my pants in the last issue." Kaiba tried to ignore the heavy heat against his back. It was both uncomfortable yet comfortable. How does that work out?

Yeah well the joke's on the fucker that took it. He probably still has the burn scar from when Schmidt branded him in the ass with the KC poker. That was the staple of every security officer in Kaiba Corp. Pokers. To brand people with. His plan was flawless.

Mokuba walked in in all of his teenage glory and, spying them near the kitchen, decided to see what they were staring at. He tugged at his itchy nose ring as he leaned forward and examined the latest Enquirer. "This one isn't bad. At least your hand's not down his pants like the last issue."

Kaiba groaned. "Shut up, Mokuba." And this time, he meant it.

* * *

_For Japanese newbs: 'Tadaima' means 'I'm home'. 'Okaeri' roughly means 'welcome back'. Pretty sure. It's been years since I stepped foot in a Japanese class._

**[RIP my ears for listening to the Zexal song to get into Kaiba's headspace. I'm so sorry, Kaiba.]**


	2. 2. Project M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candy Crush will never be popular. Just like Mokuba.

_**2.** _ _**Project M** _

_This is Kasuko Tamotsu of JKLX News. I'm here in the chopper and right now you are watching live. That's right, **live** , as the Kaiba Mansion, owned by multi-millionaire CEO of Kaiba Corp, Seto Kaiba... man that was a mouthful... hold on! The place is now on fire! Domino police are now releasing the anti-riot gas!_

Kaiba stared at the TV as his house... his  _HOUSE_  was literally the focal point for thousands of teenagers and people attacking cops and running from them.

What. The. Flying. Fuck?!

* * *

This had all been Joey's fault.

Aside from the occasional 'shut up', Joey treated Mokuba reasonably well in comparison to his actual brother. When Kaiba wasn't in the mood to deal with his brother, (and really, when was the last time he actually  _did_?), it was Joey who surprisingly was willing to talk with the teen. One of the rare perks in their marriage, he supposed.

This way they can scheme together and maybe Kaiba can have his long overdue peace and quiet.

They were seated around the very large and very expensive table, Kaiba on one end and Joey on the other, who the latter was deviating between playing Angry Birds and ignoring text messages from his manager. Typical irresponsible popstar. He may not be able to see him play that infernal game, but he can  _hear_  it, and that was just as worse.

Aside from that, it was reasonably quiet. Was this what a normal family was like? Kaiba could get used to it.

"CUT MY WRISTS AND BLACK MY EYES! TAKE ME AWAY TO PARADISE!" And there went that precious bit of peace. Kaiba nearly dropped his cup of coffee from the sudden outburst. Annoyed, he glared at his side to find Mokuba reading the J-National Enquirer and wearing skull-themed headphones that looked like it was trying its damned hardest to squish his head like an orange.

He growled at the cover page.

"Hey! I know that song!" Wonderful. Now Mokuba got  _Joey_  going. The blond beamed at teenager, his tone whimsical. "It's by the greatest band in the world...  _AC/DC_."

"That is  **not**  AC/DC." Kaiba said sharply. Joey pointed his fork severely at him.

"Are you contradicting the greatest musician ever?!"

"Point me to this  _great_  musician." Kaiba sneered. "I'd love to meet him. "

"Worst. Husband. Evah." Joey went back to his cereal. "Why did I marry you again?"

Flipping his newspaper up like the stuck up ass that he was, Kaiba was greeted with black, white, and the absence of Joey's stupid face. "Because I have money."

"Fair enough."

"Seto..." Both adults turned to the teen, ready to tell him to shut up. Joey's mouth was even halfway open and Kaiba could see bits of cereal. Disgusting. "So... my birthday's coming up..."

"Uh-huh." That caused both Mokuba and Joey to stare incredulously at him. He  _broke_  the chain. In a fit of distress, Joey climbed on top of the table to check Kaiba's pulse.

"Kaiba broke the meme! Kaiba broke the meme! You must be sick! My poor tragically-romantic-Edward Scissorhands-emotional thing!" Kaiba pried Joey's cold fingers off of his neck and bent his wrist in an iron grip.

"Touch me again and you'll never play a children's card game as long as you live." He threatened, twisting his husband's wrist up in an unnatural angle. Joey laughed nervously and retreated from his grip like the dog he was, tail between his legs.

Ah, the joys of the married life. Mokuba took the blessing in disguise before he was shot down and told to shut up. "Can I have a party, Seto?"

The response was instantaneous. "No."

"Oh c'mon, Kaiba. Let the kid have one little party. What's the worst that can happen?" Joey returned to his phone to check on his Dragon City app. One of his earth dragons, who he had affectionately named 'Tristan', was easily knocked out in the first round of dragon stadium. "Geez Tristan, you're just as useless in this game as you are in real life!"

Kaiba flipped the newspaper open with an audible smack. "We're not having this conversation, Mokuba. Why don't you prove you can be taken seriously as a main character by wearing more black lipstick."

It was at this point that Mokuba had enough abuse. "Maybe I will!" He jumped out of his seat and glared daggers at his brother. But, like usual, Kaiba wasn't interested in Mokuba's problems, especially his teenage ones. "And maybe I'll get another piercing too! Right on my... !"

"Ah, I wouldn't suggest that." Kaiba glanced over his newspaper to see Joey shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I've seen manly men walk out crying in the end. Fair warning, Mokemon."

Mokuba ignored Joey and forced the conversation back on track. "You don't understand, big brother! You can't fathom how deep my feelings are!"

"Right. Because I'm a robot." The same song and dance. He turned a page and found a black and white version of that horrible scene at the airport in the Entertainment section. His left eye started to twitch again.

Kaiba didn't want to admit it, but Mokuba looking like a Gothic drag queen  _did_  bother him. Only because he was running out of excuses why his brother was no longer invited to formal events in representing Kaiba Corp. He was still getting get-well cards in the mail from his fangirls. They all wanted to get into his pants by pretending they care about Mokuba recovering from a shark attack in Sea World.

"It's okay, Mokuba," Joey smiled warmly. "I'll help you come of age!"

Mokuba turned to Joey, thick black eyes wavering at his brother-in-law. "Really, Joey?"

"Uh-huh," Joey cooed into his phone. "I'm gonna feed ya and give you so many rainbow flowahs, you'll be stronger than the Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

Kaiba snorted. "Idiot." No digital piece of crap app would ever trump his mighty Blue-Eyes. Mokuba slumped down in his seat, rejected.

"I just want to celebrate my birthday." That seemed to get their attention. Joey was smoldering Kaiba with an accusing glance as if  _he_  was the responsible adult. He couldn't even take care of a goldfish without the bowl suddenly exploding.

Realizing that he was outmatched, (and really even while Mokuba looked like he had just been shit out of Tim Burton's ass, that pout had always got to him), Kaiba let out a sigh and lowered his last line of defense: the financial section. "One small party."

Mokuba's eyes widened. "REALLY?"

"At Skunk-E-Sneezes." Both of the two most important people in his life had two different kinds of reactions to that.

"NO!" Mokuba whined. "That's for kids, Seto!"

"AW YEAH! Skunk-E-Sneezes! They have the best pizza!" Joey whooped for joy and turned off his game. "I'm gonna text Tristan! He's gonna be so jealous!"

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "Tristan can use a phone?"

"SETO!" Mokuba slammed his gloved hand onto the table which caused Kaiba to sneer at the black and green nail polish. And people called  _him_  the queer. "Don't do this to me! Please, I just want a teenage party! TEEN-AGE. With a DJ and glow sticks and random sex in the bathrooms..."

Joey looked up at the mention of sex. "With lots of giant breasts?"

Kaiba glared at him. "We really need to talk about your obsession with huge breasts."

"Nyeh-nyeh, I can't hear you Kaiba. The only frequency I can understand is big-boobanese..." Joey plugged his ears. "Do you have big boobs? I think not!"

Marrying him was _such_  a mistake.

"SETO!" Mokuba cried out.

He felt a headache coming on. "Mokuba, either have your party at Skunk-E-Sneezes, or don't have one at all. It's your decision."

"But Seto-"

"Shut up, Mokuba."

Mokuba tried to flip the table in anger, but he wasn't Chuck Norris so he ended up losing when the leg obeyed gravity and slammed on his toe. He let out a howl of pain as everything from Joey's cereal to Kaiba's coffee slid off the wood and onto the Persian rug. Joey whined at his upturned cereal bowl.

"MY LUCKY CHARMS! You heartless bastard!" Jerkass must run in the Kaiba family. He knelt by the bowl and bowed his head in defeat. "Now how will I catch the leprechaun when my clovers and blue moons are melting into the carpet?!"

His rug! His Persian imported rug! Kaiba whirled dangerously at Mokuba, who simply glared back. "That's it, Mokuba! You're grounded! No Skunk-E-Sneezes for you!"

"I. Hate. You." Both adults stared at the teen, stunned by how deadly serious the boy sounded. Lip quivering, Mokuba turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. It would have been an effective exit if he didn't look like Hot Topic exploded all over him. Still, it had left Kaiba momentarily speechless.

Unfortunately, it was Joey who got the last word in. "Ooooh, yer in the dog house now, Kaiba." It was so ironic, the house nearly imploded on itself.

* * *

Maybe he was feeling something called guilt. Or maybe it was the enchiladas Joey forced him to try during his lunch break. Either way he felt like shit.

Joey retreated out of the sound booth, rubbing the light sheen of sweat behind his neck with a small towel. Was simply  _singing_  that much of an exercise these days? "Still feel bad about Mokuba?" Joey chirped, ignoring the dispassionate look Kaiba was giving him.

"What did you do? Hump the microphone?" He wasn't going to get into this. The conflict between him and Mokuba was a family problem. Joey had no reason to be a part of it.

But he did. They were married now, weren't they? The blond idiot in front him was now a part of his family whether he liked it or not. This was all sex's fault. If one of Joey's few talents had not been in the sex category he might have less gray hair these days. That  _had_  to be the sole reason he put up with this shit.

Kaiba didn't mean to visit Joey after work. He had better things to do than deal with his dumbass husband. But after what happened this morning and how heartbroken Joey looked trying to gather all the offending marshmallows off the floor in the hopes of summoning an imaginary leprechaun for riches untold, maybe Kaiba felt a tad desperate for reassurance. Especially when it was obvious that Mokuba refused to talk to him. It was oddly comforting that this time he had someone else to go to when things got rough between him and his brother.

"As if humping an inanimate object is anything different from what I do with you," Joey jeered back and tossed the towel right on top of Kaiba's impossibly nice mullet... which he used as a distraction to swoop in and invade Kaiba's personal space while the man angrily tossed the nasty towel aside. "Love you, butter-snicker." He nipped at Kaiba's jaw hard.

"I hate you." Snarling at the intrusion, Kaiba grabbed Joey by the front of his shirt and debated on whether he should kiss him or toss him right through the two-way window booth. The stupid kissy-face thing he was doing with his lips made him decide on the latter.

Luckily for Joey, his manager reappeared from the booth and cleared her throat to get their attention. "Ah, Mr. Kaiba, I did not know you were here." Her voice was hoarse and aggressively slutty. It reminded him of Mai Valentine with breasts popping out of her half-done unbuttoned shirt and all.

She immediately got Joey's attention. "Hi, talking cleavage!" He smiled and looked down at her ample bosom. She seemed to be taking this whole thing like a common occurrence, responding with a smile of her own. "Please remember my name, Joey. It's Chichi, remember?"

Chichi. How appropriately named.

"Whatever you say, my fair cleavage." Kaiba rolled his eyes, feeling irritatingly ignored. Whatever. He had nothing against Chichi. Anything with breasts bigger than triple D's got Joey panting like a horndog. It was a natural Joey Wheeler quirk he had to deal with. Kaiba, however, preferred his women more sexualized through action instead of appearances. Breasts were optional. Vaginas too. And they had to be really fucking stupid so he could take advantage of them and they would be none-the-wiser.

So really, he had hit the jackpot marrying Joey. Because should they divorce, Kaiba was getting everything.  _Everything_. He smiled a demon's smile.

Somewhere in the night, another puppy passed away in a little girl's arms.

Chichi was telling him something, but like Joey, his mind was much more preoccupied somewhere else. The only difference was instead of breasts, it was on the fact that Mokuba was spending his birthday alone due to being grounded. That was kind of eating at him.

They can go out for dinner or something. That was one of the main reasons why Kaiba was here at J-Dom Records in the first place. He had been surprised walking in to find Joey actually working. Like, he was  _actually_  recording singles.

He figured that Joey had been spending time in America following the coattails of other much more talented artists instead. Despite the fleeting moment of being impressed he quickly came to the conclusion that the songs were crap and anybody who would honestly find Joey's music listenable was crap as well.

Maybe Joey secretly worked for 4kids.

"Alright! I can go for some chow!" Kaiba didn't even realize that he told Joey about that. But he must have because Joey's stomach started to sing in better tune than his husband's vocal range.

"May I suggest spicy foods?" Chichi pointed her pen lightly against her employer's throat. "Joey's high octave range hasn't been as strong since he got over that cold. It might help clear out his passageways."

Kaiba had another idea on what might help open Joey's throat, (another puppy died by the way), and his smirk was even starting to unnerve the popstar. A hasty retreat seemed to be a sound strategy.

They didn't get far out of the building before they noticed a crowd of sound techs surrounding a giant TV screen, whispering and pointing at what looked like an emergency news report.

"Oooh, maybe Yugi's grandpa kicked the bucket!" Joey suggested, eyes bright with tears. "The poor guy always wanted to depart from this world!"

Kaiba sincerely doubted one old man's death would prompt this much of a response, but he himself was curious. Ignoring Joey's blubbering about how wonderful Yugi's grandpa was and some kind of Black Luster poster he was leaving behind, he shoved an intern aside to see what the fuck was going on.

If he was human, he may have dropped dead right then and there, but seeing as he was called a robot, he simply froze. His processing speed couldn't handle this overload of information.

His mansion was on  _fire_.

"Wow..." Joey's eyes widened, finally joining the rest of humanity to gape at the news report. "I feel sorry for whoever owns that place!" Kaiba was simply too shocked to snap or make a quip, eyes permanently glued to the screen. "Hey! Is that Tristan?"

Alas, there was the fucktard looking drunk (or high) out of his mind. The helicopter's spotlight was following him as he pranced around the inflamed roof of Kaiba's mansion. He jumped off into the giant pool with a war cry.

"TELL SPIDER-MAN I LOVE HIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!"

Joey's lip quivered. "I will, Tristan." He said solemnly. "I  _will_."

"TCH!" Seto Kaiba was surrounded by idiots. And then, suddenly, the world dropped from under him in realization.

"MOKUBA!"

* * *

Kasuko Tamotsu kicked a lesser news reporter to the side amidst the chaos. This was her story and no one else's! Righting herself up, she waited for her cameraman to give her the cue. She brushed a bit of hair from her face, ignoring the fact that there was someone running in the background who was clearly on  _fire_. She double-checked her reflection from a pocket mirror and then raised her microphone up. Perfect!

"Three... two..." He pointed at her.

"Thanks Jim-Bob! This is Kasuko Tamotsu of JKLX News. Right now I am directly in front of Kaiba's mansion and it's absolute anarchy! There are people pushing each other trying to escape both the police and the fire department as an anti-riot brigade is currently storming the premises. Apparently, there's a crazy freaky fish guy running amok and causing more problems as the authorities are trying to close down what many believe is the greatest party ever witnessed in Domino City!"

Somewhere from far off, a dark haired man wearing nothing but a dolphin float around his hips was yelling, "I AM **NOT**  A FREAKY FISH GUY!"

"Mako's a freaky fish guy!" Joey sing-songed out of the limo for no reason. Kaiba was already ahead of him, practically spitting at the Captain to let him through. Catching Kasuko's attention, she wasted no time shoving the microphone into Kaiba's face.

"Seto Kaiba! Was this dangerous party approved by you?! Did you know over a hundred thousand people were seen partying throughout your entire estate?!"

Kaiba, too much panicking over where Mokuba was to bother with PR damage, began spitting so many obscenities in the woman's face that the whole censor was one loud beep to the television viewers. Luckily, Joey was there to temper the flames. Not the mansion's flames, no, that was just silly. But he did pull the microphone over to himself, giving Kaiba enough time to psyche out the Captain and run into the mansion.

"Hey! Is that Ryuuichi Sakuma?!" He pointed somewhere to his left and that got both the woman and the cameraman looking in that direction. Except it wasn't a ruse as Joey intended. Ryuuichi Sakuma really  _was_  over there. He was suddenly torn between going after Kaiba or saying hi to a fellow legendary idol.

"Ugh." He looked at his hands. One had a pen in his hand for Sakuma's autograph... and the other was his wedding ring. He can go after Kaiba and miss the only chance to see his idol... or let Kaiba burn-burn-burn like the burning ring of fire and get that notorious autograph that he had been dreaming of since... last week.

Tough choice.

He shoved a fireman aside, grabbed a bucket of water and drenched himself in it before following after his husband. "I'VE GOT TO SAVE THAT BOOTY! AND KAIBA!"

It was stupid. He should have drenched himself before going in, but logic left him when it came to his idiotic brother. The kid was always in trouble and he always had to save his kidnapped ass. Kaiba kicked down a broken down banister and moved in, not even sure that Mokuba was even in there! He could have escaped with the others.

But he didn't want to take that chance.

"MOKUBA!" He yelled against the flames. Everywhere he went there was just complete destruction. Alcohol, drugs, a random party-goer passed out near the stairwell. He ignored him when he found it wasn't Mokuba.

"Shit, shit, shit!" A familiar voice caused him to turn. Joey was dutifully running up the stairs. "JOEY! Where the hell are you going?!" That fucking idiot! Was he trying to make this situation even worse! He had more of a problem looking for Mokuba. He didn't need to find Joey's life at stake too!

"I'll be back!" Was Joey's last words before he disappeared into the flames. Kaiba tried to chase after him, but part of the ceiling collapsed, blocking him from going up.

"YOU STUPID FUCK!" Kaiba howled through the obstruction, not realizing that he was starting to leak around the eyes. How would Joey get down now?! Their last words wasn't even meaningful! Fucking real world problems!

There was still people trying to get out of the mansion and he can hear hollow sounds of rushing water before the entire dining room to the side was suddenly flooded. The fire department must have been releasing water from helicopter. Joey might still have a chance to survive whatever the fuck he was doing.

He didn't have to search long. There was only one place he was pretty sure Mokuba would go to in case the house was collapsing. Kaiba found him trying to pull open a small hidden safe in the hallway, looking fucking smashed and high but still coherent enough to recognize him.

"Gotta get the treasure!" Mokuba slurred out. Kaiba slapped his hands away and began pulling him as more water rushed on by from the second floor.

"Forget it! Let's get out of here!" Once Mokuba was out, he was going back in for Joey and if they both die due to Mokuba's stupidity at least it was something the kid was going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. He'll never disobey his big brother again. Fucking flawless.

"NO SETO! I want mom!" With a snarl, he shoved Mokuba aside and got to work with the safe, pulling out a very old and very worn leather-bound book. Mokuba clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. "You done? Or do you want us to go upstairs and save your My Chemical Romance CD collection too?!"

Mokuba began to drunkenly sob as Kaiba pulled him towards the entrance. "I dunno what happened. I just wanted to be the main character! People were chanting my name, Seto!" It had been the greatest thrill he ever had in his life.

"Well congrats, Mokuba, you got what you fucking wanted!" Kaiba screamed over the rushing water. "Now you've destroyed the mansion and killed Wheeler!" He didn't even notice half of the second story alcove came crashing down over his head until something grabbed his middle and pulled him back at the last second. He whirled around and locked gazes with Joey, who looked like a drenched rat. What was different about him was the front lapels of his jacket. It was pulled tightly around his middle as if protecting something within from water damage.

"WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?!" Was all Kaiba could manage to say before their chimney exploded. It couldn't handle all of the water being emptied from the roof. All three of them ended up being washed straight into the kitchen before they escaped through the servants' corridor.

Unbeknownst to them, Mako was surfing down the grand staircase screaming something about being framed in Sea World for a shark attack.

* * *

Three million in damages. He had eight civil suits, seventeen pending convictions for disorderly conduct and threatening the peace, his insurance company was pissing up his chimney about reckless premiums and there was a gigantic hole in his favorite suit from when he slid through his house like it was a fucking water slide.

Kaiba had no choice but to make his private sky rise apartment their temporary living quarters. He could almost sense his now jobless staff from the mansion protesting outside of the building, their union no doubt ready to ride his ass until he relocated them appropriately.

But Mokuba finally got what he wanted. He's  _popular_. His lips curled into a snarl at the thought. If looks could kill, he'd be a serial killer right about now. Happy FUCKING birthday, Mokuba!

While the business side of him was absolutely going nuts, another part of him was satiated. No one important was harmed. Wheeler didn't get trapped in the second floor. In fact, he was currently making sure whatever was in Mokuba's system was emptied into the toilet. Kaiba wasted no time telling the doctor to give Mokuba every drug cleaner as a suppository after they were checked into the hospital for burns. It was only fair for the shit he put him through.

"Whelllp, Mokuba's sleeping like a goth baby in a HIM concert," Joey leaned against the door frame, intentionally trying lighten up the situation and failing miserably from the withering look his husband was giving him. "And nothing of value was lost!"

Kaiba took in Joey's bandaged hands with a cool gaze. There was nothing,  _nothing_  that could lighten up his mood now. Mokuba was a hungover mess, Joey was injured doing whatever stupid rescue shit he did earlier, and the media wasted no time trying to crawl up his ass. "I lost three million in damages." He said without an inflection of emotion.

"Ooookay, so  _something_  of value was lost. But at least we have each other!"

"Spare me the lovey-dovey bullshit, Wheeler. I'm not in the mood." He had to know though. "Why did you go upstairs?"

His husband opened his mouth and raised a finger up, then stopped. And then, to add on to Kaiba's confusion, he wordlessly disappeared into the next room.

"Fine. Don't tell me." Kaiba wasn't in the mood to deal with Joey's idiocy. Having tossed his phone into the trash to avoid the numerous calls he was receiving, he tried to cool down his temper by messing with Joey's abandoned phone and the ridiculous games he had on it. Candy Crush seemed to be Joey's newest edition. He snorted at the girly image. Figures the mutt would be interested in it, the queer. Like that would  _ever_  be popular mainstream.

Dragon City. Stupid farming app. Still, the premise interested him. Anything dragons was worth his attention. He played a bit of it on his own phone, but he had been much too busy to take care of his dragons unlike Joey. He was surprised to find how well ordered and well kept the dragons were. He even named them after people.

One caught his attention. This dragon was  _named_  after him. Kaiba the  _Robot_  Dragon. He snorted. Very clever asshole. There were two other dragons in Kaiba's habitat. An adolescent dragon named Mokuba... and the other one named Joey.

That gave Kaiba pause. He continued to stare at the digital dragons roaming in the small habitat. Together. Safe.

Something hard was being pressed against his cheek. Ready to complain and tell Joey to get the fuck out of his personal space, his eyes snapped to a deck of cards.  _His_  deck of cards.

How could he have forgotten his deck in the fire?! Kaiba snatched his beloved deck away from those unworthy hands and rifled through them, his heart lifting at the sight of all three of his Blue-Eyes White Dragons safe and sound.

"Yugi taught me a valuable lesson," Joey was grinning wildly. "You must always risk your life for cards! Because life without them ain't worth living in!"

Kaiba was at a loss for words. He had forgotten his cards in the heat of the moment, but Joey didn't. The cards tumbled out of his hand and onto the floor because Kaiba needed both of his hands for this. He impulsively grabbed Joey and kissed him. Hard.

He locked gazes with him. "I love you... cards." Clearing his throat, he looked down at the mess of cards on the floor. "I _really_  love my cards."

"Nyeh... I love my cards too." Joey wisely nodded before he was drawn into another kiss. "I love my guitar too, but I think it went to the great beyond of Gibsons." He sighed. "I'm gonna miss it." There just wasn't any time to collect it before the water came crashing down from above. He was just lucky he managed to keep the cards from getting wet at all.

"I'll buy you another one." Everything can be replaced. This... the cards he meant of course... can't. Joey looked at him with almost suspicion, probably gauging whether he would be insulting the memory of his shitty old guitar with a brand spanking new one. In the end, he must have reached critical mass of his thought processes because he suddenly snatched his phone from Kaiba's hands and held it close to his chest.

"What did you see?!" He accused.

"Dragons."

"Oh." That was all he could manage to say because for some reason Kaiba was acting very affectionate, leaning into him to play Password along his neck with his lips. Kaiba was  _so_ gay. And he was okay with that.

"Hey Kaiba," Joey grinned devilishly. "Wanna mate with our dragons?"

Not this shit again. He wasn't in the mood for games. But hell, he'll bite... which he did.  _Literally._  Joey always made the most interesting sounds whenever he did that. "You can do that in the game?" He purred.

Joey snorted, tossed his phone over his shoulder and pulled Kaiba down with him. "Who says I was talking about the  _game_?"

* * *

**[Tristan's a poo dragon btw]**

__


	3. 3. Good Luck Suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they discover that the artifact is the fabled Millennium Rug.

**3.** **_Good Luck Suck_ **

His neck was killing him. A soft groan escaping his throat, Kaiba woke up to find himself hanging off the couch half-naked and sore in all the right (and wrong) places. He barely even registered Joey's leg uncomfortably pressed over his throat until his sense of personal space finally kicked in and he shoved it away.

Unfortunately that maneuver caused both of them to fall off the couch. And Kaiba swore especially loud when he realized that they had landed on his scattered cards.

Despite shoving Joey's unconscious body around to collect his cards, his husband continued to snore away Kaiba's bitching. He suddenly reached out from his place on the floor to squeeze what seemed to be invisible breasts.

"Oh Kaiba...! Your breasts are so big!" Joey moaned between snores.

Idiot.

Mindlessly tossing one of the couch comforters over Joey's exposed form, Kaiba yawned and sat up, trying to loosen the cramped muscles in the back of his neck. First thing on the agenda: masseuse. Because damage control be damned, if he wasn't at his top physical condition, neither was it mentally.

Double-checking on Mokuba to make sure he didn't drown in his own vomit overnight, Kaiba disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower.

That was when he saw it.

"WHEELER! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"  _That_  got Joey up.

* * *

"Get rid of it!"

"But Kaiba...!"

" _Now_!"

What was going on in Joey's headspace was a complete mystery to Kaiba. And, quite frankly, he didn't care to decipher it. All he was focusing on was that his dumbass of a husband was groping the ratty Egyptian rug like it was a jilted lover. Joey rubbed his cheek against the rolled up straw. Kaiba watched him with acute disgust.

"You don't understand, Kaiba! This rug is our good luck charm! I was sitting on this when you asked for my hand in marriage!" Joey whined. "It's the symbol of our everlasting love!"

This was ridiculous. "You have got to be fucking kidding me." But Joey's strangely serious conviction for the rug said otherwise. Nonetheless, he wasn't going to have that ratty thing in his carefully feng shui'd apartment. That thing was an earth element. It was going to fuck up the water energy he had meticulously constructed for his stress. "You're telling me that out of every. single. item. you could have saved in our bedroom, aside from our decks, you took that."

"That's right!" Joey said defiantly. "Because I love you!"

Kaiba headache began to flare up. Nothing about that stupid ass rug had anything to do with love and yet Joey clung to it like it was a beacon of nostalgia. He didn't save anything of worth like their commemorative champagne flutes or even their wedding pictures. Nope, just a fucking two yen rug.

Joey waited for the explosion with a brave face but, in a very uncharacteristic move, Kaiba raised his hands, decided against it, and shook his head. Nope. He needed to stay calm. He had other important things to do. "I'm... going to take a shower." His words were shaky, but calm. Getting angry was just going make his blood pressure skyrocket and he didn't need the added stress.

But before he disappeared into the bathroom, he pointed threateningly at that infernal rug. "If _that's_  not gone when I get out, I want  _you_  gone." Joey glared back.

"Kiss my ass, Kaiba!"

Kaiba shut the bathroom door hard. "Reliving last night won't change my mind, Wheeler!" He can hear muffled obscenities through the door, but he didn't give a shit. Double-checking to make sure there wasn't another moth-eaten rug in the tub (one surprise was enough for Seto Kaiba), he got in and let the scalding hot water wash away his sins.

When he emerged in his bathrobe, he had hoped to find the rug gone and maybe Joey offering himself as tribute for ruining his morning.

He was sadly mistaken.

Joey somehow managed to invite the dweeb patrol over in less than twenty minutes. He immediately turned back around. There was no way in hell he was going to deal with this shit-

"Hey Kaiba!" Tea's scratchy voice was jarring to his ears. "We heard your house burned down and decided you needed all the friendship you can get!"

 _Fuck_  your friendship. Kaiba locked himself in the master bedroom.

"Poor bugger." Bakura piped up, politely sipping at his tea. He's British, you know. "He must be taking this whole thing hard."

A sudden blast of techno music played in the background when Duke spoke. "Well,  _shyah_. I'd be pissed too if I wasn't invited to my own house party. And that was a fucking. epic. party. Mokuba's gonna be famous for like... a  _day_."

Joey groaned and dragged the comforter over his head. "Nyeh... don't remind me! Why didn't you guys text me about this party?! I wanted to dance and sign Ryuuichi Sakuma's autograph and snort coke with Hugh Hefner!"

Tristan stared dreamily up at the ceiling. "Best party ever! They had bounce houses, Joey! BOUNCE HOUSES! And clowns! Clowns IN bounce houses!"

"I hate you all." Joey growled. "You guys are the worst friends evah!"

"Oh please, you're married," Yugi snarked. "And everybody knows that once you get married, it's all downhill from there. Yup, just a life resigned to watching Grey's Anatomy and picking out living room curtains. You're not allowed to smoke crunk or go to kicking parties like the rest of us young folk."

Joey stood up, insulted. "That's not true at all! I'm a popstar! I went to tons of American parties! Everywhere I went: paparazzi and crotch shots as far as the eye can see!"

It was too easy a bait to pass. "So... what color curtains  _are_  you getting for the patio?" Yugi teased.

"Pthalo blue." Joey snarled without thinking. "What's it to you?"

"Whiiiiiiiiippppped...!" Duke and Yugi sing-songed.

"Besides, you would have dragged our coolness down," Yugi continued happily. "We had Tristan enough as it is. Any more and we probably wouldn't have made it past security!"

Joey sniffed. "Really?"

"No. We were turned away at the gate. Apparently being the number one duelist in a children's card game isn't considered cool anymore," Tea shrugged. "The only reason we got in was because Kemo's hair was watching the back entrance. His hair would do anything for his son." They all glanced at Tristan. His eyes were glistening with tears.

"I have the coolest father ever!"

Duke leaned back in the couch and sighed happily. "I got laid so many times, it should have counted as an orgy." Tristan nodded in time to the background music. "And I met Spider-Man!"

"That wasn't Spider-Man for the last time," Yugi deadpanned. "That was a flasher wearing a Spider-Man mask."

Incensed by the blasphemous remark, Tristan grabbed Yugi by the front of his jacket and lifted him up in the air until they were eye-to-eye. "It's not true! He was nice! He gave me candy that didn't taste like candy!"

"That's right, Tristan. And you woke up an hour later with no pants."

Duke smirked. "Sounds like a typical Tuesday night for Duke Devlin."

"I wish that was a typical night for me." Tea said wistfully.

* * *

The clean up crew was already at work trying to salvage whatever they could find at the mansion by the time their limo pulled up. Kaiba personally wanted to oversee the salvage and get an item list of things that may have survived. Sculptures, paintings, personal effects, everything that was irreplaceable. Joey and Mokuba was with him for obvious reasons, but Yugi's group somehow managed to chase after the limo and follow them.

Like he needed any more incentive to deal with them.

"Hey!" Joey rifled through one of the salvaged boxes and pulled out a large, burned frame. "It's our wedding day picture!" He squinted at the fragmented state of it. "Yugi and the others got burned out!"

Kaiba smirked over Joey's shoulder. "Seems like an improvement to me."

Tea meanwhile had been reduced to being a meat shield for Tristan, who was deathly afraid of Mokuba. "For the last time, Tristan, Mokuba isn't going to turn you into a frog."

"We're trying to get Tristan to tell the difference between magical folk," Yugi explained to Kaiba, but he frankly didn't give a shit. "Satanism is bad, but Harry Potter is good."

Tristan glared at Mokuba's fishnet shirt. "Do you HAVE an owl?!"

Mokuba frowned, too distressed over what happened to care about Tristan's quirks now that he was sober. "No."

"HE'S NOT FROM HOGWARTS! GET THE FLAMETHROWER!"

While Joey was being surprisingly helpful with the salvagers in directing what was to be kept or donated, Kaiba could only examine the wreckage further, kicking a dead rose bush on the way. Wasted. All of it. Despite how oblivious he seemed, Kaiba knew that Joey was a bit distressed about the wedding stuff. At least, he was pretty sure. The blond seemed to look teary-eyed when he saw the remains of their commemorative mantelpiece. Those couldn't be replaced faithfully ever again. The pictures, possibly. He might have to make a few calls to their wedding photographer and see if she still had the negatives. It was possible.

"Such a shame." Bakura offered his condolences, patting Joey on the back while examining the charred state of what was left of their wedding mementos. "But at least no one was harmed."

"Except for the few people who died in the flames," Yugi ruined the moment with his morbid cheerfulness. "But they weren't important."

Mokuba shoved his hands in his pockets and had the decency to look down in shame. "I'm sorry big brother."

Kaiba couldn't even muster the energy to tell him to shut up. He simply stared at the ruined husk to the left that used to be his office. His personal sanctuary. It was this silence that made the atmosphere dip in temperature.

That is until Tristan pointed dramatically at what was left of the still smoking wreckage Kaiba had once called home. "Look Kaiba! The roof! The roof is on fire!"

"No, Tristan." He answered mutely. "It isn't."

Joey unnecessarily jumped in. Literally. On Tristan's back. "We don't need no water!" They both chanted in unison. It was probably a historic moment for them. Two half-brains merging into one. "Let the motherf-!"

He had enough. Snatching a handful of golden hair, Kaiba angrily dragged his husband off of Tristan. "Our stuff was in there, Wheeler, and you're SINGING about it?!"

"Pooooopstaaaarrr!" Joey reminded him. Kaiba wildly wondered if his husband was trying to cheer him up by pretending nothing had mattered. If so, he was doing a shitty job of it.

"And it's not like you can't start over," Yugi reminded him. Ever the voice of reason, he had just piss on the figurative fire. "You're Seto Freaking Kaiba! An entire person's life can be destroyed if their house was on fire! You can just... build another one! Don't put yourself down on our level!"

"Was that supposed to be a compliment for us, or an insult?" Duke asked over his theme music. The constant electronic beat was doing a number on Kaiba's headache.

He sneered at the lot of them. Joey was trying to shimmy out of his grip by whining 'nyeh' and trying to act like a weird crab thing. He ignored him. "As if I'll ever put myself down to your level, but don't you DARE claim my livelihood is anything less than yours! The things in that house were worth more than your very lives!"

"Yeah!" Tristan said dramatically. "Like the batcave!" It dawned on him. "Oh. My. GOD." He turned to Kaiba. "WHAT HAPPENED TO ALFRED, BATMAN?!"

"I'm. Not. Batman."

"That's what Batman WOULD say!"

Joey had the decency to nod. Or try. It was hard when his hair was being pulled out of his skull. "That's right, he  _would_."

The headache. It became a migraine. "I'm so done with you losers." He half-pulled, half-dragged Joey back to the limo with Mokuba silently at his heels. "I've got a company to run!"

Tristan chased after them. "Don't worry, Batman! You take care of Wayne Enterprises! I shall become Nightwing while you fix the Batcave! Tell Alfred I said HELLO!"

He was rewarded with a limo door to the face.

* * *

Kaiba barely managed to command the driver to step on the gas before another annoyance decided to further ruin his life.

_Nothing will bring me down_

_No retreat when I leave all my fears behind_

_My future's still alive inside!_

**Zexal.**

He scrambled to find the source of that shitty song and destroy it once and for all. "Where is it?!"

"Where's what?" Joey folded his arms and watched his husband's slow descent into madness. It was a real jarring sight for Mokuba to see Joey looking calm and collected while his brother was near ready to tear out the leather seats to find the origins of the song. Did married people usually swap personalities from time to time? Bizarre.

"There!" Kaiba growled, blue eyes blazing once he realized the ringtone was coming from Joey's pants. "Lift up your ass."

Joey frowned. "Nyeh?!"

"Don't make me say it twice, Wheeler! You'll regret it!" But Joey had a different perspective on what Kaiba actually wanted.

"I knew you were a freak, Kaiba, but you can't expect me to give you any part of my ass while Mokuba's here!" The blond yelped when Kaiba lunged for him. "NYEAHHH! Bad touch!" Kaiba's hands groped his hips. "Shield youse eyes, Mokester!"

Fucktard. Must  _everything_  be about sex?! Shoving his hand down Joey's back pocket, he managed to procure the cellphone he had tossed in the trash. Zexal's ringtone blared loudly again once he shoved Joey aside. "What the hell are you doing with this?!"

Joey flipped him off from his position on the floor. "It was in the trash! I thought it was singing to me when I was clearing out breakfast!" And he almost tossed the trash out too. That was the brutality of the music industry. Never let potential competition get the advantage over you! "You should be much more responsible with your belongings! We did just have a house fire, ya know?"

No shit, Sherlock. Kaiba's left eye twitched at the screen. The call and text count was in the  _hundreds_. He didn't even want to think about the voice-mail either.

"Are you happy, Mokuba?" He gaze was icy towards his little brother. "Was your little house party worth all this trouble?" Mokuba shifted uncomfortably in his seat before answering.

And his answer startled Joey. "Definitely." And then  _Kaiba's reaction_  startled the blond even more.

Kaiba smiled a dark smile. Somewhere, a puppy got hit by a car. "Good. No regrets. A Kaiba has no regrets. And you're going to face the consequences like a man, Mokuba. Like a main character." That made his little brother sit up a bit.

"Yes Seto."

"So... we're just going to let the whole 'burned down our livelihood' thing go by the next chapter?" Joey blinked. "What about the stuff that was irreplaceable?"

"Everything can be replaced," Kaiba coolly sat in his seat and turned off his phone entirely. "Even you."

"Oooh, clever. Spouse of the Year, you ain't." Joey snarked. Tempting thoughts about divorcing Kaiba changed, however, when they stopped at a Kentucky Fried McBurger Dog and the unfeeling CEO got him a giant Oreo shake. Then he fell back in love.

The shitty Egyptian rug's love magic has done it again.

* * *

**[He named the rug Dorothy]**


	4. 4. Fan Mail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Joey to play keeps the oral fixation away!

**4.** _**Fan Mail** _

The first bit of fan mail Seto Kaiba had ever gotten was back in the orphanage. He had fired one of his child minions because they didn't pull Mary's pigtails correctly during snack hour and, apparently, Mary was extremely grateful.

Her letter was written on a bright pink heart with pebbles pretending to be jewels.  _'I wish you can pull my hair instead, Seto.'_  That was all he could remember from it really because he tossed it right into the trash. But girls were naturally attracted to assholes, so after he heartlessly tossed away Mary's confession, five more popped up in its place the next day. It kind of snowballed from there when he got obscenely rich. And obscenely sexy.

These days, he received over ten grand a  _day._  A fucking day. Unless his fans were writing ten extra ones per bag, it should be virtually impossible. But there you had it.

Joey Wheeler, however, was never popular of a main character enough to warrant his own fan mail. How  _Bakura_ , who couldn't even count as a side character, received tons of mail a day was still a mystery to the blond.

"Probably because he's British," Joey had growled after rubbing two brain cells together. "Like LittleKuriboh."

But not today. Now that his first album launched for the Japanese public, Joey had been waiting eagerly for his first bag of fan mail and, much to even Kaiba's surprise, managed to procure his first impressive bag of letters by the week's end.

"Look at this!" Joey yelled and dumped the bag right on Kaiba's desk. "My first fan mail bag! Jealous?!"

Kaiba took one unimpressed look at the bag and then nodded at the window behind him. "See those two trucks outside, handsome?"

Joey tilted his head to the side. It was so obliviously cute. Fortunately, Kaiba was three-quarters immune to it. "Yeah so?"

"They carry my fan mail out every day to the city dump." He shoved the bag off of his deck and returned to his laptop. "So yes, Wheeler. I am  _extremely_  jealous. Getting rid of your mail must cost a lot less for you."

Sputtering indignantly, Joey gathered his bag and set up shop in the leather couch. "Thanks dear. You are the  _wind beneath my wings_." Kaiba snorted back and that was that. The rest of the afternoon was met with the constant sounds of clicking keys and the occasional rustle of paper.

Or, it would have, if Joey's expression didn't slightly sour for each letter he opened. But that would imply that Kaiba gave a damn and occasionally looked over to check on him. Which didn't happen. Nope.

It reached the point where his morbid curiosity got the better of him. He gave Joey his best business smile in the hopes to rile him up. "So... how's the fan mail going? Any offers to sire bastard children?" Joey responded with the middle finger before opening another letter.

"Okay, someone's fucking with me!" Joey angrily tossed what looked like his hundredth open letter across the room. Kaiba's lips curled into a threatening sneer when it hit an expensive Byzantine vase and wobbled dangerously on its pedestal. "This is all HATE mail!"

He couldn't help it. Kaiba started to snicker. Then chuckle. And then it became a full-blown howl of laughter once he raised his head up. "Why am I not surprised?! Your music is shit, Wheeler! It's about time the common people saw reason!"

"It has NOTHING to do with my music!" His husband snarled. "It's about YOU." He tossed one of them right at him. Kaiba caught it with a cool ease and opened it.

Wow.  _Graphic_. He raised an eyebrow while reading. " _'How dare you make Kaiba gay, you piece of shit! Why don't you direct him to a real woman or better yet, a real man?_ '" Not very clever, but it successfully got to Joey. He can see his husband's shoulders visibly shake in anger while he read it out loud. "Big deal." Kaiba tossed it into his wastebasket. "It wasn't even a good insult."

But it took a lot of balls to get someone like Joey Wheeler visibly disturbed. With a sigh, he closed his laptop and gestured for another letter. This time it was a postcard.

" _Greetings from Nagoya._ " Well, this one started out nice. " _Wheeler, your music sucks and you suck for marrying Kaiba. He can do so much better. Like me._ " At least this one talked about his music. Seto flipped the card over. "There's a picture of her flipping you off."

"Thanks for the narration." Joey growled.

This was almost humorous. Almost. Kaiba ordered another letter to read through. This wasn't even addressed to Wheeler! "' _Setou ur teh only thing wurth aneeting in the hole wde werld. I luv u! Leaf Joey Weller!_ ' Huh. I never thought I'd see someone who was worse at grammar than you. You learn something new everyday." But Joey said nothing and simply tore through the bag hoping for at least one positive letter to his name.

Kaiba watched his fruitless attempts for a bit. Was every single one of these letters just hate mail for Joey? Deciding that breaking his husband's spirit was enough for the day, Kaiba returned to his laptop because really, Joey reading all of those did his job for him.

* * *

" _Dear Joey Wheeler, divorce Seto Kaiba before I visit your house and kill you._ " Kaiba clicked his tongue at the letter, strangely amused AND annoyed. "You might want to start screening your fan mail for anthrax."

Joey groaned. He shoved the second bag off the bed and tried to drown himself into the pillows. "How am I supposed to harness a fangirl army like you or Bakura when they hate me for sleeping with you?!"

"You really want to go there?" He took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Joey's mood had become so low-key the past few days, Kaiba was starting to wonder if he was on downers. Not even when he was currently trying to appeal to Joey's  _megane_  kink was it improving the blond's mood. "It's not all it's cracked up to be. Most fangirls are more of an inconvenience to deal with, Wheeler. They squeal, they cling, they write shitty fanfiction by inserting their avatars to compensate for their teenage sexual frustrations... and they never end. Sure they grow up and go on to do productive things, but they will always be replaced by the next generation. And the next. It never ends!"

Joey tossed a pillow at him. "Thanks GI Joe. Any other Sesame Street morals you want to teach me?"

"Leave the asshole sarcasm to me, Wheeler." Kaiba glared, feeling a bit offended. "It doesn't suit you." A suffering muffled groan was Joey's only response. He let out an exasperated sigh. "Maybe you're not appealing to the 'right' kind of fans. Ever heard of  _yaoi_?"

His husband poked his head out of the pillows, eyes wide open with wonder. "Is that some kind of sushi?"

" _Goodnight_ , Wheeler."

* * *

The problem was that with each day Joey religiously read his new mail, the more subdued his response time was whenever Kaiba passed by. This was why Kaiba never read his  _own_ fan mail. To let someone else's words affect his moods only empowered them. And he'd rather die than let complete strangers have power over him.

But Joey  _did_. Or, to put it succinctly, he gave a shit about his  _haters_. The more he read them, the less confident he was that he was going to get something positive.

And seeing the man deflate day by day was slowly pissing Kaiba off. No one was allowed to beat Joey's self-worth into submission but  _him._

"Just ignore the damn thing!" He snapped on the sixth day, disturbed by how quiet Joey seemed to be at dinner. Especially since Kaiba went out of his way to fly the pizza all the way from  _Chicago_. And yet this ultimate act of kindness hadn't cheered his husband up the slightest. It was maddening. "Who cares what a bunch of idiots think about you?"

Joey slowly pushed his untouched plate of pizza away. That unnerved the CEO more than he'd like to admit. "They hate me because I'm with you."

"So?"

"So?" Joey repeated, disbelief on his features. "Have you read any of them recently?!"

"I don't read fan mail, Joey, I incinerate them." Kaiba pushed Joey's plate back.  _Eat_ , you moron. "Why would I waste my time on peons?"

Shaking his head, Joey slid the plate away again. That caused Kaiba's left eye to twitch. Why was this so difficult to understand? "Stop that." He warned dangerously. "If you don't eat, your stomach causes an earthquake. And I have no intention of waking up in the middle of the night to find the entire building leveled!"

"Then I'll sleep on the couch!" Joey snapped back. "I'm not fucking hungry, Kaiba!"

Oh for fuck's sake! "Develop some kind of thick skin, Wheeler, because that's what happens when you're famous. You're going to have fans  _and_ you're going to have haters. Deal with it!"

"That's the problem, Kaiba! All of it was hate mail! I don't have  _any_  fans." Joey was giving such a heartbroken stare at the table, Kaiba was conflicted between drawing him into his arms or punching him in the face to make him see reason. Fuck peoples' approval, they didn't need any of it. Kaiba had been content on his own with Mokuba so far. And now that Joey made three, his circle of companionship didn't need to get any bigger.

But Joey just didn't thrive on solitude. He liked the limelight and enjoyed feeling important. Kaiba could understand to an extent, but it didn't mean he felt like going all Dr. Phil on this. The dumbass was just going to have to learn that life was filled with disappointment. "Wheeler, a word of advice: You either sink or you drown someone else to stay afloat."

Joey raised an eyebrow. "Eh... don't you mean 'sink or swim'?"

"I know what I said."

"You know..." With a sigh, Joey leaned back in his seat. "You kind of suck at this whole 'comforting' crap."

Kaiba was annoyed. The rare time he was trying to cheer Joey up failed again. Aren't spouses supposed to help the other see reason much more effectively than anybody else? That would then imply that Kaiba was just a plain shitty husband. The idea made him angry... and strangely hurt. He masked his growing frustration by waving dismissively at him. "Ask me if I give a shit."

"I don't need to ask. You're doing it all on your own." This was ridiculous. Joey shouldn't be one-upping him with the verbal abuse. It only served to prove that this whole fan mail thing was screwing with Joey's head. It was making him clever; a defense mechanism for all this negativity. This needed to end.  _Soon._

But how?

* * *

It was now week two since Joey started reading his own fan mail. It was getting  _worse_. Joey was getting so morose with his lyrics, he was putting Mokuba's secret emo poetry to shame. On the plus side, the music seemed to be better for it.

On the  _minus_  side, it was driving their personal life straight into the ground. Joey just wasn't in the mood to do  _anything_. And with Kaiba being mostly frigid by nature, the Arctic Ocean had seen warmer temperature than their  _bed._.. if Joey managed to make it there every once in awhile. Sometimes Kaiba caught him sleeping in the living room at three in the morning with letters stuffed into the cushions.

He had enough. That was when Chichi had caught the CEO the next morning ordering Hans and Gruber to grab the new bags of fanmail from J-Dom Records and discard it before Joey found them. She wasn't exactly amused by their breaking and entering, but what was she going to do? He was Seto Kaiba. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

"What do you think is worse, Mr. Kaiba? Joey getting hate mail, or finding none at all?" She tried to pry one of the bags from Hans' arms and that caused Kaiba to snort through his sunglasses. Like a boss.

"He was fine without them. He'll get over it." With a nod of his head, Hans raised the bag over his head and away from Chichi's reach... and breasts.

Clicking her tongue, she snatched Kaiba's sunglasses, revealing a very prominent set of black bags under his eyes. She faltered from the sight. "It's really bothering you, isn't it?"

He huffed and grabbed his sunglasses back. Thieving bitch. "As if. I've had these since I was  _born._ " He just simply didn't put on his foundation this morning.

"You. Need. To. Give. It. Time!" Chichi flashed Gruber her breasts, causing the crazy German to drop his loot in shock. She grabbed that AND Hans' with a surprising bit of dexterity. "Justin Bieber had a lot of hate mail too before he got decent fan mail!"

Kaiba snorted and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from inside his Armani jacket. "Uh-huh. Pull the other one." Chichi's eyes widened when the CEO clicked open a lighter and lit up.

"I didn't know you smoke."

"I  _don't._ " He clicked the lighter closed and took a long drag. Smoking was unpopular? He just made it cool again.  _The Truth_  ads just got a new franchise nemesis. "I've got an oral fixation that hasn't been quenched in two. fucking. weeks. And it's  _your_  client's fault. Either tweak him out on antidepressants or so help me God I'm going to bury every letter ever brought to this good-for-nothing hovel you call a record label!" He already had one emo in this family. He didn't need (or can survive) another one!

Chichi thoughtfully rubbed her chin which caused her giant breasts to push up. It nearly caused Kaiba's bodyguards to keel over from blood loss. "Why don't...  _you_  be his fan?"

Smoke escaped through his nose. The sweet, sweet nicotine was tempering away the irritation that was fraying at his nerves. Joey's distress somehow became  _his_  distress. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." She waved the smoke from her face. "Be his fan. Write him a nice fan letter."

That was the dumbest idea he had ever heard. And he's heard of  _Google Glass_. "Why the hell would I do that? His music is shit."

"But most of the hate mail had nothing to do with his music. It was insulting to his character. And you know his character more than anyone." When she got no answer except for the occasional drag, she revealed her face-down card. "You  _do_  love him, don't you?"

There was no inflection within those blue eyes. Instead, he flicked his cigarette away and turned on his heel.

"Absolutely absurd." With a snap of his fingers, Hans and Gruber immediately saluted and flanked him as he turned the corner and disappeared.

Eyes narrowing at his retreat, Chichi picked up the discarded cigarette and finished it herself. "He's so whipped."

And, perhaps, she also had to do her part to help Kaiba out. The only reason she became Joey's manager in the first place was because of his passion. It was unbidden and out of control like a wildfire. She would be surely disappointed if that fire was no longer present in his music due to idiots.

* * *

With a soft sigh of defeat, Joey pushed the large pile of opened letters away from him. More hate mail. And it was  _worse_. Now they wished for his soul to burn in a fiery damnation. He supposed he could give them credit for creativity.

"What's wrong with me?" He asked the empty fishbowl. It used to have a goldfish but for some reason, it exploded. Flushing Captain Goldie down the toilet had been an emotional experience he didn't want to relive again. "Is it my hair? Is it because my eye color isn't as unique like that hot shot, Mary Sue? I bet she gets a LOT of fanmail! What should I do, Captain Goldie's ghost?!" No answer. There never is.

Maybe it was time to give up having a fangirl army. Last letter and then he was done. No more reading them. Kaiba may be onto something after all about the whole incineration bit. He wiggled his fingers as they rummaged into the near empty bag. It felt like he was reaching into his deck for the winning card.

"Heart of the Cards!" He teased to himself, tickled by the similarities. If only Yugi could see him. He'd probably call him pathetic. Because everybody knows that Yugi stacks his deck to _win_ , not rely on the 'heart of the cards' bull.

The letter he pulled out didn't have a recipient address written on it. That raised a bunch of alarms. What if the band  _Anthrax_  popped out of the letter and killed him just as Kaiba predicted?! Being extremely cautious, Joey pulled out the letter with his chopsticks. Better safe than sorry!

The letter wasn't fancy, but it didn't look like someone wiped their ass on it like some of the others he's read. The script was extremely uniform and clean which caught his attention. Maybe this was a 'constructive criticism' letter. He hated those. They always used big words that he had to pull out a dictionary to comprehend.

_'Dear Joey Wheeler,'_  Joey held his breath to anticipate the vitriol that was coming.  _'I am your biggest fan.'_

"Nyeh?!" He almost dropped the letter in surprise. Rereading that single sentence more times than he could count, he had half a mind to believe it was a joke.

_'You need to get off your ass and ignore the hate mail. Haters are going to hate, Joey. They're jealous of you because you're banging Seto Kaiba. Own it.'_

Joey blinked at the surprisingly short letter. "Own it." Something about this letter made his heart do flip-flops. Maybe it was because this was his first nice letter he's gotten so far. His mouth split into a wide grin. "Own it!" Hugging the letter to his chest hard, he jumped off his seat and pumped up his fist to the ceiling. "Haters gonna hate, son! I'm banging Seto Kaiba and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it!"

"Whoop-de-fucking-do for you!" The ceiling said. "Now shut up! Some of us have work in the morning!"

* * *

Kaiba didn't hear the end of it. Joey had barged into his office and excitedly reread the letter. Five times. "Yes, congratulations on your first positive fan letter. Now will you kindly shut up?" The new CEO of Yayoi Corp was flirting stocks with him through email and Kaiba was trying his damned hardest to be a tease to lower the yen before buying the company right from under him. That'll teach the business home-wrecker a thing or two.

Joey ignored him and kissed the letter. For some reason, that caused the CEO's ears to redden. "You don't understand, Kaiba! This letter... it spoke to me. It lit my soul on fire! Thanks to this letter, I've been getting fan mail left and right... and not the bad ones!" He nudged the large bag with his boot, filled to the top with glowing compliments over his relationship with Kaiba. Even his  _music_  was getting compliments. "Better watch out, Kaiba. I might even steal some of  _your_  fans!"

"I'll be sure to sob about it one day," Kaiba said absently to the screen. Seiren Yayoi just asked him out to dinner. How did that happen? Narrowing his eyes at the rather forward email, he could see Joey in his peripheral vision lovingly place the letter to the side before going through the rest of them. A small corner of his lips quirked up.

It wasn't enough to kill, but it did put a puppy in a coma.

"Hey Kaiba. What does 'uke' mean?"

He did  _not_  just hear that. And  _because_  he did not hear that, he didn't answer. In fact, he was going to blame Chichi for it. Her and her contacts with the untapped reservoir of yaoi fangirls on the internet.

"Maybe it's short for ukelele? Ain't that weird! See this?" Joey shoved the letter right into Kaiba's face. "How am I supposed to answer this? Why would I be the ukelele to your seme-truck?"

Kaiba snatched the letter and then crumpled it up, uncaring as his husband sputtered when he tossed it into the trash across the room. Nothing but net, baby. With an annoyed whine, Joey immediately scrambled after the letter and, for the life of him, Kaiba still didn't understand the blond's fascination for ass-kissing fan mail. "Do you mind, Wheeler? I'm actually  _working_  unlike some idiot I kn-"

He was rewarded with a crumpled up ball to the face. Joey let out a bark of laughter at his surprisingly good aim. The letters must be improving his hand-to-eye coordination! As the paper ball bounced off the desk and rolled away, he caught a glimpse of the murderous look on Kaiba's face. His laughter became strangled. "Oh shi-"

"That's it, Wheeler. You are so fucking dead." A split second later and Kaiba was on the move, sliding out of his recliner with an inhuman speed to get his hands on him. Joey yelped and scrambled off the couch to escape the office, but Kaiba was faster and his legs were too fucking long to be normal. He managed to get a firm hold of Joey's ankle. The blond let out a strangled whine as he crashed onto the carpet.

"GEAHHH!" Joey grabbed the leg of the coffee table as Kaiba attempted to drag him across the floor, his shirt riding up uncomfortably. "DOMESTIC ABUSE! DOMESTIC ABUSE! SOMEONE CALL LAW AND ORDER: SVU!"

Kaiba was both angry and yet strangely turned on by how Joey was trying to kick at him with his pulled up shirt and all. A secret violence kink, perhaps? He was learning something new about his sexual preferences every day. "I got your 'domestic abuse' right here, dumb shit." He growled and got to work. Joey was going to pay for every frustrating inch Kaiba had suffered for two weeks straight.

Cold fingers ran up the exposed skin of Joey's stomach which caused him to explode with strangled laughter. "No... Kaiba stop... ! Ahhhh!" He began to thrash wildly from the torture until he pulled his grip from the coffee table to try and punch out his tormentor. That seemed to just amuse Kaiba further, only letting out a hitched gasp when Joey punched him in the stomach.

"Not my face, Wheeler?" He breathlessly teased before grabbing Joey's hands and pinning them to the floor. Joey may be stronger, but Kaiba had a better technique at disarming his opponents. Huffing at the disadvantage, at this rate Joey hoped that sex was endgame here because his back was getting carpet burns and he'd rather not it be all for nothing.

"Your face is worth a hundred grand, I hear." Joey spat out before grinning. "I can't sell it if it's bruised."

Business porn? Joey knew him well. "Good boy," He purred, blue eyes dark and aroused. "I guess there's a brain somewhere in that gigantic hair of yours after all."

"Screw you."

"No, Joey. I'm going to screw  _you._ "

* * *

_For Japanese newbs: 'megane' means 'glasses'. It's a kink for boy's love tropes._

**[Seme Kaiba? It'll never catch on.]**


End file.
